1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to water harvesting apparatus and more particularly to methods and devices to separate cranberries from debris floating in the water during the harvesting.
Cranberries that are destined for processing into juice and sauce are normally mechanically beaten off their vines. This is done after the bog has been flooded to raise the vine by the buoyancy of the berries. The beating process also dislodges vines and other debris or trash as well as the leaves off the plants that then remain in suspension in the water in the interval between the beating operation and the gathering of the berries. At the point of loading the cranberries onto the conveyor there are typically encountered two distinct types of trash or floating debris. First the many small leaves typically about 1/2" by 1/4" in size that are routinely washed off the berries without much difficulty prior to loading into the moving vehicles. Second, various lengths of torn vine, weeds, grass, pine needles and other windborne particles. Because this type of trash intertwines with more than one berry, it has proven difficult to separate once it has been gathered with the cranberries. Growers regularly experience financial losses because of rejection of part of their shipments due to the presence of this trash. Further, a considerable part of the potential harvest is lost in the matting, entrapping berries that can not be economically freed once the floatsam has been moved out of the water. The prior art shows several attempts to separate harvestable fruit from rejects by their specific weight or dimension. One such example is the U.S. Pat. No. 2,976,992 to Bloch.
In this device the greater buoyancy of closed and sound nuts is used to separate them from less buoyant and open rejects. A number of processes and devices have been contemplated to classify minerals and ores at processing plants using a combination of gratings and flotation processes. As only one typical example might be cited the U.S. Pat. No. 1,461,067 issued to Moser, which uses grating of various fineness to classify grades of gravel passing through them.